The Black Swan Behind

229 Threatened Girls

Seeing the danger at the door, Cecil and Britney immediately took an umbrella from the side of the door and together beat the two kidnappers with the umbrellas.

“Help! help!” Cecil shouted with all her might. However, one of the criminals punched her in the face, causing her to fall unconscious.

“Cecil!” Britney shrieked. Her hands were shaking because her fear only appeared when she realized that the kidnappers did not hesitate to hurt them.

Poppy who saw this then threw back a double kick which made one of the men fall. After the man’s grip was released, Linda immediately struggled and managed to free herself.

In the end, the two kidnappers who had no fear ran away after realizing that they couldn’t fight the girls easily.

The four girls sat quietly in the studio, still with shocked faces. The ambulance and police were already in front of Poppy’s ballet studio.

A red car came to the front of the building and then a girl got down from it and quickly went inside.

Emma went straight to Poppy and Britney. “What happened?” She asked directly.

“Linda was almost kidnapped by those two men,” Britney replied.

.....

Emma then turned to Linda who was giving information to the police on the other side of the room. Then she looked back at the two girls. “Are you guys all right? How about Cecil? Where is she?”

“One of the men hit Cecil in the face to send her passed out, Emma. Cecil is now in the ambulance being checked,” Poppy answered.

“Gosh.. This is terrible. But has she come to her senses?” She asked again.

The two girls nodded. “Maybe she has an injury to her nose,” Britney said.

Emma snorted with her hand on her hips. She didn’t even have any intention of sitting down at all. She was very worried about this situation. Earlier, when she was doing homework, she suddenly got a call from Poppy saying that they were attacked by two male kidnappers in front of the studio. Without thinking twice, Emma immediately came there and found everything was a mess. Even Cecil fainted from being hit by the bastards.

“Could it be that Crystal was kidnapped by them?” Emma muttered to herself. She immediately approached the two male policemen who were talking to Linda.

“Sorry to interrupt. Can I have a word with you two, please?” Emma asked the two police.

The police looked confused as they looked at each other. “Well, what do you want to talk about?” One of them asked.

“Regarding the case that just happened to Linda, I think that this case might be the same case as the disappearance of one of our friends named Crystal Winland,” Emma explained.

“Crystal Winland?” One of the police muttered. “Oh, right. I know the case. The girl who was reported missing,” He nodded.

“It happens that the case is being handled by another police team.” His partner added.

“At least you officers can match these two cases, right? And have there been similar cases?” Emma asked again.

“Look, Young woman.” One of the cops with a slightly distended stomach turned his face to Emma. ??”We know what we’re doing. Even if you didn’t say anything about your friend’s disappearance case, we would have noticed it right away. We are professional authorities. You can entrust everything to us. Because that is our job. Got it?” He smiled forcefully.

Emma’s jaw tightened. She felt like she wanted to throw her fist at the police’s annoying face. But of course, she couldn’t do it.

Emma smiled faintly with a cynical face. “It’s best if the job is done properly.” She said before leaving them.

“What happened, Emma?” Poppy asked as soon as she saw Emma back with a sulky face.

“Those damn cops,” Emma muttered as she took a deep breath to regulate her emotions. Then she told Poppy and Britney what had just happened to her.

Facing the police itself made Emma’s temper rise. This was the first time Emma had confronted the Handway City police who were reportedly useless and annoying.

Now Emma could feel it for herself and it made her imagine how Calvin felt at that time fighting for justice for his brother. She also thought about what it would be like to be a Redvalley residence that was colonized by gangsters but the police had never paid attention to their reports.

“Miss, we need the CCTV footage in front of the door. Can you help us?” One of the policemen approached them.

“I’ll show it to you,” Poppy said by bringing the two men to the reception desk where there was a computer there.

After that, the two policemen finally left and not long after, the ambulance also left after treating Cecil who refused to be taken to the hospital. Luckily, the girl’s nose wasn’t broken. It was just an injury on the inside so it bled.

“Are you really all right, Linda?” Emma asked the caramel brown-haired girl.

Linda nodded. “I’m so grateful that I was able to escape and run all the way to the door. I don’t know what would have happened if they had managed to take me.”

“How did you actually meet them?” Emma asked.

“While I was walking towards the mini-mart, I felt someone following me. Then suddenly a man appeared from a dark alley and caught me. And another man appeared out of nowhere. He pointed a handkerchief at my nose. I was scared that they put sleeping liquid in the handkerchief so I immediately held my breath. After that, I kicked back and hit the man who was hugging me from behind. Thanks to my kick, the grip was released so I was able to escape.” Linda explained.

“Are their faces visible?” Emma asked.

Cecil shook his head. “They’re wearing black masks and hats. Even their eyes were covered in shadows.” She said in a weird voice due to the nostrils patched with tissue paper.

“Maybe we can take a look at the CCTV cameras,” Emma said.

“Nice idea. I also want to see when Poppy beat the guy up,” Britney added.

“She did?” Emma’s eyes widened.

Poppy nodded with a shy face. “I did as you taught, Emma.”

Emma smiled proudly. “Well done, Poppy.”

“You guys learn self-defence?” Linda asked directly.

“Yes? T-that’s right. We studied self-defence a bit because things were often unsafe.” Emma answered.

“Well.. Let’s see the CCTV footage,” Poppy said immediately as she got up from her seat.

It seemed that she and Emma had accidentally talked about their self-defence lessons. It would be bad if the three gossipy girls talked about it to people.

The girls were standing behind the receptionist’s table which became cramped due to having to accommodate five people behind. Poppy fiddled with her computer with the other girls watching from behind. After being busy with her computer for a while, Poppy began to notice something was wrong. “The record’s gone. It’s not there.”

“What?” Emma frowned.

“Are you sure it was there?” Linda asked.

Poppy nodded. “I opened it myself to show the cops. This is the folder. I’m pretty sure!”

“This is crazy. Why did it disappear?” Britney said.

“Could it be that the cops removed it?” Cecil squinted her eyes.

“Judging from the annoying attitude of them, I don’t know why I feel like they deleted it on purpose,” Linda said.

Emma looked at her. “They also acted annoying to you?”

Linda raised her eyebrows once. “That’s similar to what happened to you, Emma. You think you’re the only one being treated like that? I’m the victim here. But I didn’t feel safe at all after reporting to the cops.”

“What did they tell you, Linda?” Cecil asked.

“They asked if I had seen the faces of the two men or not and if they took anything of my valuables. I know they directed me to file a robbery report instead of kidnapping.” Linda explained.

“Damn it. Looks like they covered it up on purpose. I’m sure they deleted the video.” Emma muttered to herself.

“Emma’s right. For some reason, I also feel that the cops were deliberately covering up the case that happened to me,” Linda nodded.

“Have you thought about it? Isn’t it very likely that the Crystal case was also covered by them?” Britney asked.

“It seems so,” Emma answered.

“Living in this city is getting unsafe. We can’t even rely on the police anymore.” Cecil huffed.

“Oh, Emma. Where did you learn that self-defence?” Linda asked. “Looks like I’ll have to learn it to be able to fight like Poppy. It really comes in handy at the most unexpected times.”

“Well.. Actually, it’s self-taught. But if you want special training, I know there are many martial arts studios in this city,” Emma answered.

“You are self-taught? How is that possible?” Britney looked surprised.

“It.. just like that..” Poppy rubbed her arm uncomfortably.

“I taught her,” Emma answered immediately to bring Poppy surprised.

“Emma..” Poppy looked at the girl questioningly. Didn’t Emma want to cover her abilities?

Emma ignored Poppy. She knew that Poppy thought that she wanted to keep hiding her martial arts skills. But now Emma had a different thought.

The evil that took place in Handway City stalked the girls. Now even the people Emma knew were victims. As much as possible, she had to do something to prevent bad things from happening to the girls, especially her own friends.

“You?” Linda looked at Emma with a doubtful face.

Emma nodded. “I can do a little self-defence. And I taught Poppy that so she can protect herself when danger approaches.”

“You can do that for real, Emma? But you don’t look like you can, you know,” Britney said.

“I didn’t want to show it on purpose. I wouldn’t think of my martial skills as something I could be proud of. But I’d be happy to teach women who want to protect themselves,” Emma answered.

“Well, that’s cool, Emma. When can you teach us?” Linda asked.

“As soon as possible,” Emma smiled a little.